HP iPAQ 310

Feb

15

2008

HP (NYSE:HPQ) isn’t totally new to the GPS market, but in the past they have approached GPS from more of a PDA perspective. That has changed with the introduction of the HP iPAQ 310 which is built more like a traditional PND. This GPS is packed full of features and is currently selling for good prices at those features. But how does it stack up against the bigger names in GPS? We’ve spent about 700 miles with our iPAQ 310 and here is what we were able to find.
Before we get into the thick of things, it is important to note who this GPS is not for. If you were to create a list of adjectives and phrases to describe your ideal GPS and that list contains simple, straight forward, out of the box, or drop dead easy…. This GPS isn’t for you. If on the other hand your list contains customizable, full featured, does it all, or you are an advanced GPS user, keep on reading.

Physical Design

HP obviously put a good deal of thought into this GPS. The color is a bit difficult to describe. I could only describe it as a dark maroon, anodized/brushed metal finish. On the front above the display is the power button, below the display is a power/charge indicator as well as the microphone port for hands free calling. Along the left side is an SD card slot which most people won’t need. No SD card is included, but instead a plastic “blank” fills the slot. The speaker is located on the back. Out of the top comes a stylus… I always cringe when I see a stylus on a GPS because you shouldn’t need one… and thankfully I never did need to use it.

On the right side is a dial/jog button. This button serves several purposes and could be easily missed causing many people to think the IPAQ 310 doesn’t offer a few features that are actually there. Make the manual your friend while learning the operating of this device. “Click” the dial once and the volume menu will appear. You can then rotate the dial to the appropriate volume level. Click the dial twice and you get access to the screen brightness setting; again turn the dial to make the brightness go up and down. Finally if you click and hold the dial you get quick access to several commonly accessed features such as route avoidances, canceling routes, recalculating routes, switching between 2D and 3D map modes, going into night mode, editing a route, viewing a route overview, a ‘Go to’ menu, and going into full screen mode. We will cover many of those features in the review, but it is worth pointing out that somewhat secret menu because I’ve seen people who claim certain features don’t exist because they never found that menu.

A reset button is found along the right side which thankfully I never needed to use. Finally on the right is a set of ports protected by a rubber cover. Under the cover you will find the USB/power port, a headphone jack, as well as an external antenna port. As we’ve seen so many times in the past, you can’t judge the reception quality of a device just based on the chipset used. The HP iPAQ 310 uses the SiRFtitan chipset and gets very fast and very accurate reception. You won’t likely need an external antenna as the 310 seems to get better reception than many other GPS devices with a similar chipset inside.

The screen is one of the most attractive parts of this GPS. It is very bright, doesn’t wash out at wide and high viewing angles, and the on screen graphics are very attractive. While most other GPS devices with the same size screen size have a resolution of 480×272 pixels, the IPAQ packs in 800×480 pixels. This makes the graphics incredibly vivid and perfect for viewing videos and photographs with the included video player and picture viewer. Perhaps even more amazing is that they crammed all of that into a space that is also narrower than most other GPS devices with the same screen size and it is one of the lightest GPS devices in this class.

Mount

The mount is fairly well designed and didn’t have trouble firmly holding onto the iPAQ. It is a little bit longer than I personally like, but that is just my own preference. The ball and socket joint allows for rapid adjustment on the fly and it didn’t vibrate excessively, even on dirt roads.

In the Box

Most everything you need is included in the box. Obviously the GPS and the mount. The car charger also doubles as the USB cable. The USB cable connects to the GPS. Left bare, the other end will connect to your computer. Or you can connect it to the DC (car charger) adapter or to an AC adapter to power it via your home power outlet. Also smartly included is an alcohol wipe to help getting the suction cup to stick. Smart!

Finding Addresses

Routing to an address is fairly simple. From the Main menu click Navigation -> Go to -> Address. The list will typically be pre-filled in with the last state, city, street you selected. You can simply “jump” in to whichever part of the process you need to change. For example if you are going to a different street but the same city/state as your previous entry, simply click on the street field to start there. This is a nice feature since other devices might prompt you with the location you last used, but you still need to go through that part of the process, the HP solution is more elegant.

Something else we noticed about locating addresses is that it will sometimes show streets that have similar spellings but in a different (and nearby) city from what you selected. This could be helpful if the street isn’t actually in the town you selected, but also could slow you down a tiny bit if you did correctly select the city/street.

Just to be picky, I do wish the on-screen keyboard was a little bit bigger. When typing in a city name or street name I don’t really care what the battery level is nor the current date or a few other icons they stick on the screen in this location. I would rather have seen the extra space used to squeeze a few more pixels into the keys. However there are devices on the market with even smaller on-screen keyboards so I can’t complain too much. Similar to a few other devices on the market the GPS will disable letters from the keyboard that are no longer possible based on other letters you have typed in. For example in my home state there are no cities or towns with the letters “z” or “x” in them so those two keys are automatically disabled when you enter a city or town. You can also select locations by zipcode.

Seeking a POI… ANY POI

While there are still a few relatively new GPS devices out there that ship with only 750,000 POIs, the HP iPAQ didn’t skimp here, adding in 12,000,000 POIs. You won’t find too many “missing” POIs in this device. In fact, there are so many POIs installed that it (ironically) made searching for specific POIs a little difficult in a few instances. Get to know where the “search by name” icon is near the bottom right of the screen because wading through the millions of POIs can be a bit daunting… I good problem to have I suppose. The search results can be sorted by name or by straight line distance. A few categories like restaurants are broken down into subcategories. The POI name, physical address, and phone number are displayed on-screen if you want to see that information before confirming the location as your destination.

Pro Routing Features

There are a ton of routing features that advanced GPS users will look for. You can pick vehicle types for car, taxi, bus, truck, or bicycle. There are also route types for fastest, shortest, and (my favorite) economical. The economical route method will take a look at a few of the “fastest” routes. If a route can be found that will only add a small bit of time to your route, but is a bit shorter (thus on slower roads) it will prefer that route type. This type of routing produced more similar routes to what I would have picked on my own.

Like other devices on the market, you can also specify things you want to avoid such as unpaved roads, highways, ferries, border crossings, toll roads, and roads where permits are needed. While very few people disable automatic route recalculation if you go off route, the setting is there should you desire.

You can setup custom distances to avoid along the route. Should you come upon a roadblock you can choose to avoid a custom distance ahead of you… 1km, 2km, 5km, 10km, and 30km. Yes, I am in the USA and I do have the units set to display in feet and miles so I have no idea why they display these settings in kilometers, but it does. Oh well, perhaps this will get addressed in a future firmware update.

Something we would like to see (or perhaps we just didn’t find yet!) is the ability to exclude a specific street or maneuver from the calculated route. You can preview the route detail, but not do something such as clicking on a street and tell the GPS you don’t want to travel over that point. You can work around the issue by building up an itinerary and using a via point, but that sometimes doesn’t accomplish exactly what you are looking for.

We were very glad to see the ability to create an offset starting location. When I’m traveling I often want to preview a route from the destination airport to the hotel. Many GPS devices don’t allow you to set a starting location of anything except your current location… the HP iQAP 310 does offer these offset starting locations. Simply find a location as if you were going to navigate there and select ‘Set as Start’ instead of ‘Set as destination’. Then continue to set the destination to build a preview of the route.

With a device of this many features it is no suprise to see that the IPAQ offers multi destination routing and route optimization. You can build up routes, and save them for recall at a later time. Throw a bunch of destinations into your route and manually sort the order of the destinations, or use the Optimization feature to automatically sort each of the points between you and the final destination.

Plan from your Computer

Who wants to be limited to creating routes on your computer? Further, who actually plans routes when you are in the car? Most people would rather do their planning away from the GPS device itself, and HP has an answer for that. You can plan trips on ipaq.com and then sync those routes into your GPS. You can also use that website for map updates, firmware updates, etc. The one bummer is that many of the syncing features are PC only… no Mac use supported.

People often wonder why they cannot automatically transfer contacts from their computer’s address book to set them up as favorites or POIs. I suspect the reason this hasn’t been done more often in the past is because people don’t tend to keep their addresses as “neat” as they need to be for navigation. While a GPS guides you through picking cities, streets, and addresses, “parsing” that information from an address book is more difficult than it might sound. Two line addresses, spelling errors, weird punctuation, etc can all cause issues when trying to decipher the location. HP has tried to build in a way to sync contacts from Outlook into the GPS. In my limited testing it only got perhaps a dozen out of a few hundred contacts properly mapped. Hopefully HP can work on this feature for a future update and build better intelligence into the matching. But it won’t correct how we write many addresses into our contact lists.

Navigation

Taking a trip with the IPAQ 310 is simply fun… just don’t stare too much at that beautiful screen. The screen refresh rate is very fast thanks in part to the powerful chipset and plentiful amounts of RAM. The text on the map for road names is extremely legible and stunning to look at. You can pick which POI categories you want to show on the map… while some screens tend to get a bit cluttered with too many POI icons, HP has addressed the issue with transparency. The icons are very “light” and transparent so they don’t interfere with or overwhelm the map.

I also appreciate the really big “next turn” indicator. Going beyond a simple “left/right” it displays the type of intersection in a nice graphic as well as the distance to that intersection. The menu at the top and bottom of the screen gets a bit busy, and I think there is just too much data they are trying to display there. Along the top is the phone dialer, route progress list, next turn indicator (again), the name of the next street/turn, distance to the next turn (again), shortcut to the music application, volume menu, current time, cursor menu, satellite reception icon, time to destination, ETA, current speed, and a home icon. Some of that information is redundant, and much of it is unnecessary to have in the main navigation/map view. To make matters worse, there was such little space left for the name of the next street that only about 10 characters are displayed and the rest will scroll.

Thankfully there is a “full screen” mode which will get rid of most of the mess. In fact, this is how I ended up preferring to use the iPAQ. When you go into the full screen mode all you are shown is the map, the next intersection icon, and the distance to the next turn. This was a dream and for me provided the best navigation experience. I wish HP had taken the fantastic transparency features used elsewhere and applied it to the map view… make a few of the text fields transparently hovering over the map, or be able to further customize what fields are displayed in the non-full screen map view.

Text to Speech

Perhaps the biggest disappointment with the iPAQ 310 is the navigation voice. The voices sound poor making it difficult to understand what the instructions are. While playing MP3 music or using the included games the speaker doesn’t sound too bad, so we can only hope that HP will supply some new voice recordings or otherwise address the issue. It is too bad that such an otherwise competent navigation device speaks to you like she has marbles in her mouth.

Life in 3D

One of the coolest features HP put in was 3D buildings for major cities. They are simply a thing of beauty when driving around (for the passenger of course). You can pick to display 3D buildings, elevated roads where applicable, as well as setting how far away you want to be able to see the buildings and the quality of the 3D terrain. Yes indeed, HP realized that our planet Earth is not flat. As you are climbing hills you can see it in the map view. Going downhill around a corner? No problem you can see that too on the display. Headed up a steep mountain valley? Sure, they’ve got that covered too and you can see the road wind up through the canyon. So this GPS offers both 3D buildings and 3D terrain. The terrain covers the entire map database while the buildings are available in just major cities.

When navigating in 3D mode the dial on the right side of the device can also adjust the “angle” you are looking down on the map. Most GPS devices keep a fixed view, however the IPAP 310 allows you to adjust that angle. Want a view closer to a 2D overview? Rotate the dial down. Want a view that is closer to ground level to really see those mountains you are approaching or to get a more “canyon” view in big cities? Rotate the dial up.

Bonus Round: Check out the photo on the right. See if you can identify the building and the significance of that building to this GPS. 😉 That building really does look like it does in the GPS! See if the building has been identified or add your guess in the comments below. (Street, house number, city, and most likely reason I picked that building.)

Overview Mode

My first experience with an “overview mode” came from the Harman Kardon GPS devices. Basically what this feature does is recognize when you have entered a road where you won’t be making a turn for a good distance. Then instead of just showing you the next half mile of road while you are cruising along at 65 mph, the GPS will switch to a 2D overhead view showing you anywhere from 1,000 feet to 20 miles at a time. I’ve become really fond of this feature. When you take those long trips it is nice to get more of a “big picture” view when you know you won’t be turning off the current road anytime soon.

You can turn this mode on and off, as well as specifying how far the stretch must be before going into overview mode as well as what the zoom setting of the overview mode will be.

Extras

We’ve already mentioned a few of the extras available to this GPS such as the ability to plan trips from your computer as well as Outlook contact syncing. We’ve also mentioned the video player, music player, and Picture viewer. Ala Nuvi, you also get a calculator and world clock. Being a “travel companion” the HP 310 GPS also includes a couple of games and the ability to load more. Two games are included.

The Bottom Line

It is easy to see why some people have become frustrated with this GPS. HP really went outside of the box and a few of the settings and controls can appear hidden away if you don’t know where to look for them. If you are an experienced GPS user you might become frustrated because HP approached the settings and controls from a different perspective than many other mainstream GPS devices.

If you are thinking of going to the electronics store, buying the GPS, taking it out of the box, turning it on, and driving away…. you might want to consider something more straight forward.

If on the other hand you are an experienced GPS user and don’t mind spending some quality time with the manual, this GPS could be one step closer to the perfect GPS. Through the tons of advanced features and an amazing set of customization options you might just get closer to having a GPS that is tailored to exactly how you want your GPS to behave.

289 Responses

Infama,
Your comment #198 is reassuring.
I am going to Europe in September for my 50th high school reunion, and I am still vacillating between the 310 and the TT920.
A 22 country map program for the 310 lists for about $200 from ipaqchoice, when you add shipping, and “Nav N Go 8 Europe”, covering 43 countries, about $190 with free shipping from another source.
Does anybody know if the “Nav N Go 8 Europe” software is compatible with the iPaq 310?

Roar - June 19th, 2008

Hi Infama. I bought the 314.

Im very pleased with it. A few questions though.

1) Content manager
I downloaded and it showed what was in flash and what was available. Seemed to have loads that were available but different size to what was loaded. None of them were flagged as updateable. I reflashed them anyway. The only one that didnt work was the main nav software. In flash its 325M on the website its 346 i think. How do i update the actual programme.

As a matter of interest my versions areapp suite 30555 nav mar 7 2008

2) TTS – seems to be a lot of criticism of this. I found the volume ok. Only comment is it says somethings too fast. But on the whole accurate. Where its not its funny rather than annoying! But if there is a mod to make this a non issue I would be very interested.

3) TMC – I bought the cable but it doesnt seem to find anything, every now and then it finds a channel, but when i manually tune in to it its not there. Is it a case that it only picks up TMC when radio station broadcast the traffic ie every quarter of an hour for 2 minutes? Or have i failed to subscribe to something?

4) Skins/Themes – I have been to GPSPassion and found some articles, but because of the thread format its difficult to glean info. Has anyone documented a model/patch specific documentation of how to skin and theme.

I would love to change whats displayed and how its displayed. I would love to get the skin that sznyt has done. Is there an easy way to port skins from the software the 324 Ipaq is based on.

As a minimum I would love to only display next turn icon speed and distance to destination. There is too much info on main screen. I would also love the bars to be translucent or more info on sides.

All minor points. Otherwise I love this piece of kit!

William - June 20th, 2008

Infama how do you PM on this forum

William - June 20th, 2008

Look at the top of your screen, click on GPS forums and register. Once registered and signed-on, click on members, navigate to the member you want and click on PM. You can also do it directly from a thread, by clicking on the author in the Author column.

Cheers!

Uncle Ben - June 20th, 2008

Folks,

This is not really the forum and questions wont be well seen and answered here. You need to register in the real forum and post in the HP section.

Roar, I am not sure if its easy to get igo8 to work via SD card, but I am pretty sure it does work. You cant have HP nav and Igo8.exe running at the same time, so you may need to do some manipulation like loading total commander CE and renaming it as nav.exe in the HP folder and then booting up igo8 on the card. However, inserting the card MAY override the OSstarter on the 314 and runs igo8 by default. Last option would be to rename igo8.exe as CELauncher.exe (if that is possible). You could ask at GPSpassion.com.

For anyone looking for live traffic information for their iPAQ in North America, check out this forum thread.

Tim - June 27th, 2008

I just bought 312 (Thailand version) it seem that the map for Thailand is ok for me at least it show some professional map than other GPS module, I drive around with 312 found one difficult when we bring it in to lost signal area for many hours (like charge the battery) we need to resent 312 in order to get them receive the signal from satt, I’m not sure that you guy have this problem or not?

Anyhow if lost for some minnute it is ok for resume, also my windshield shade with UV protection film it is still work with signal strength almost full!

Tommy - July 8th, 2008

Highly inaccurate and terrible inept HP customer care. My brand new iPAQ310 showed my street address in Los Angeles to be nearly 600 – 800 feet from the actual location of the unit and the displayed zip code is several miles away from the actual. I live in zip code 90068 the iPAQ310 shows that I am at zip 91605. When I connected the iPAQ310 to the computer, the unit froze. All my efforts to obtain some resolution or support from HP did not yield any positive results. One HP person arranged for the inaccurate unit to be returned for ‘RESET’. Following that another completely incompetent HP ‘higher level’ supervisor offered to replace the unit with an improved version, the iPAQ510. The problem is that the iPAQ 510 is a communication device not a GPS navigation unit. I declined the ‘generous’ offer. This is clear demonstration of the incompetence of the support staff. Has anyone tried the horrible HP computer maze in order to reach a technically knowledgeable tech support person without unintelligible foreign accent? I have talked to many HP ‘support’ people, some are impossible to understand and no one has any clue about the technical issues related to the iPAQ310. HP did send me a replacement iPAQ310. The replacement was just as inaccurate as the original and the support just as bad. The HP customer care is a myth and useless at best! I have spent over 5 hours on the phone and on line chat, and no one at HP is competent to address the inaccuracy problems. I did complain directly to HP’s CEO, in writing this too had no impact. Clearly, all that HP cares is to sell the deficient product, ignore the deficiencies and victimize the helpless customer.

Tim, thank you for the comments. Possibly it is my bad luck with HP. It is now nearly four weeks, and the situation still remains unresolved. I have several other GPS units, including one that uses the computer for display. One low cost marine unit is accurate within 10 -20 feet. All the other units are much more accurate than the iPAQ 310. Since my posting, I tested the unit at 5 locations in the Los Angeles area. Four of the test show street address errors in the 500 – 700 feet range. One test did show accurate street address, but the zip code was 20 miles to the south. All of the test show very significant zip code errors. At my home, the zip code error is repeatable nearly 3 miles. The displayed zip code is due north. I use the USPS zip code locator and the Microsoft Streets and Trips program as reference. Between these two, I get very good street address and zip code details. During my attempt to register the unit, the HP web site rejected my ID, despite the fact that I have a valid registration at HP for other products. When I initiated a ‘live chat’ on this issue, I was informed that the system is down. When I talked a person in a foreign land, he told me that he is unable to help and suggested that report the problem to the ‘FEEDBACK’ option. He told me that a reply may take 3 days. It is not over 3 weeks, there is no reply from the ‘FEEDBACK’ folks, and the system still appears to be down.

Two days ago, I talked to a person who was clue less about the accuracy issues and he promised that he will take care of things. I emailed to him very specific details which he requested. He promised that he will take care of the situation. So far there is no reply. Yesterday, a customer relation supervisor called and left me a message to call him back ASAP. This morning I started calling back and called three times in a span of 5 hours. He was not available to answer any of the calls. I left three messages.
If anyone thinks that this is a good support, I hate to think what bad support may be.
All the people I talked to, no one had any idea relative to details for the iPAQ 310. One person said that the unit needs ‘hard reset’ which must be done at HP (the reset button on the side is not hard reset) and his solution was to send the unit back.
If as you say 600 – 800 feet is close for street numbers, no one at HP has said a word about it. How close can one expect the zip code to be?

Mort Arditti - July 16th, 2008

I second that the zip code data is mostly wrong, at least in the Los Angeles area addresses I’ve tested. Also, I took my 310 to Portland, Oregon from Los Angeles last May. The 310 kept using one time zone east of Pacific Daylight Time, the correct zone for Portland. Hopefully HP will look into these issues and fix them with the next update.

Leon - July 18th, 2008

Leon, don’t’ count or expect that HP will respond. My problems are nearly a month old and HP’s response is mostly by incompetent people who are unable to resolve any problems. When I elevated the issue to the CEO, I received a email ‘form replies’ which are completely meaningless. Also, I had a long conversation with a ‘supervisor’ in the Costa Rica center who at first appeared to be helpful and willing to look into the problem. He requested that I email to him some documents, which I did and this is where it ended. Another supervisor called and left a message that I call back. In a course of three days I called nearly ten times, left messages for the supervisor. No one ever returned my calls! Their customer care should be re-named CUSTOMER BE DAMNED, and the slogan should be changed from HP INVENT HP, WE ABUSE and VICTEMIZE OUR CUSTOMERS, DO NOT expect any support. All I got was a bunch of hot air promises but result.

At this time, it is becoming evident that HP’s tactics is to have incompetent staff respond to support requests. They claim that they are unable to help, transfer the calls to some unknown destinations which are answered by message taking computer(s) and terminate the contact. If you leave a message, don’t expect to receive a reply any time soon or ever. It is entirely possible that the message taking computers may have an automatic DELETE.

If you have real problems, go the HP web site, hp.com, navigate the management team and send an email to their CEO Mr. Mark Hurd. If enough of us do this, they may realize that they can not continue to victimize the customers and change their dishonest practices.

As of this time I have tabulated five address locations in the Los Angeles area. My data shows the actual correct address (according to the United States Postal Service) versus the wrong address and very wrong zip code as determined by the iPAQ 310. I will add more such details as I get them. I will be more than happy to post these details which will prove that iPAQ 310 has serious accuracy issues. Is there a way to attach an Excel file to the posting here? Based on my experience, it is clear that HP is not interested in providing any support or corrective action.

Thank you.

Mort Arditti - July 18th, 2008

My error:
Please note that I made an error in my July 18 post. At the end of the first paragraph it states “promises but results”. The correct statement is “promises but NO results”.
Sorry for my error. Unlike HP, I admit when making an error and correct it.

Mort Arditti - July 18th, 2008

Can anyone tell me if it is possible to get europe/uk maps for the iPaq 310 if purchased in North America?

Wendell - July 18th, 2008

Wendell, I think this has been discussed in the HP iPAQ Forums. Check these:

Wow – are they ever expensive ….. Thanks for the info, Tim – the 310 still intrigues me but the price of the euro maps may well deep six a purchase, when the TomTom and Garmin options are less expensive, and more easily available here in North America.

Wendell - July 19th, 2008

I feel pretty much the same way, Wendell.
It is a pity HP refuses to make foreign maps easily and reasonably available for international travellers for us based here in the U. S..
I have e-mailed HP several times inquiring about this issue. Most times I get ignored, and when I finally got a responce, it was a reference to a one of their sites with no trace of any European maps available for purchase, which is what I specifically asked about. DUH!!
On our next trip we will make do with our lap top and Microsoft.

Roar - July 20th, 2008

I have had a couple of emails back from HP – and suggested that they consider being real competition for TomTom and Garmin by making Europe and UK maps available for purchase here (and vice-versa, I would add). They are really missing out, imo, on potential markets here. And I suspect that the map sales business is pretty profitable as well. It just doesn’t make sense to me, but whatever, it’s their call on what their business model is.

Wendell - July 20th, 2008

Anyone have the 310 or any other 300 series iPAQ and can comment after installing HP’s latest update? It is a very large update that HP says contains not only updated maps but OS improvements as well.

I am considering the 310 so far over any other GPS on the market, I like the hardware specs alot and even though it is a Windows CE powered unit I am hoping this update has improved the performance/reliability of the unit. I would appreciate any feedback on this, thanks.

Arthur - August 5th, 2008

I hope HP reads this.
I do not understand their marketing strategy.
I am going to Europe in three weeks.
Due to their lack of support for providing European maps for us here in the U. S. and Canada,
I gave up and purchased a TomTom 920.
As indicated earlier, I was really interested in the iPAQ 310, but having to find a European supplier for the expanded mapping was just too much.
Score:
TomTom: 1
HP : 0

Roar - August 14th, 2008

Rcv’d my 310 in the mail two days ago. Spent all day attempting to update with the CM and failed. Found the 1.7gb North America update package and downloaded over 5 hours time. Install took a couple of hours and another update for the .exe took another hour. All done now and it works great.

Used the GPS yesterday for a trip to my Sister-in-law 70mi away who lives on a country road. The 310 routed me a new way that was quicker and much easier (shocking since I’ve driven there many, many times) and now I’m a believer. I still can’t get the Outlook contacts to sync but overall I think this device is a winner.

My old GPS was a Lorance Iway100 which is MUCH more difficult to learn and use. It took months to get up to speed on that dinosaur but I loved it’s flexibility and capability. Hope the same turns out true with the Ipaq 310.

Cheers

Keith - August 24th, 2008

Does the IPAQ allow you to download gps data traveled (long/lat/time) in something like a CSV format to a computer?

Jerry - August 24th, 2008

What other video formats can be played on this device? and can you install third party applications to play videos?

Norm

Norm - August 30th, 2008

Norm, I’m still waiting to receive my Ipaq 310, so I don’t know about supported video formats, however, I do know that you can run TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player) and possibly Coreplayer (newer version of TCPMP). TCPMP supports a wide variety of video formats, including divx .avi’s and I believe .WMV’s. I believe that it can also play .m4v’s or other mpeg4 videos that were encoded to play on Ipod’s and such.

Nathan - September 1st, 2008

My iPAQ 314 fails to boot up after I ran upgrades on the maps. The Content Manager does not even see this device any more. Hope it is not on its way to becoming a brick!! Has any one experinced this?

Mohan - September 4th, 2008

hello,
very helpfull your reviews!I have a quetion,please.Can use the the soft from Garmin or TomTom on 314 IPAQ.Thanks

radu - September 16th, 2008

No, you can’t.

Tim - September 16th, 2008

I have heard that some people have gotten the TomTom 6 software to work on their iPAQ after much hacking. Of course we are talking about legally owning the software to begin with……..

patruns - October 3rd, 2008

After nearly two month of ownership I thought I’d update from my 14 August post.
I am very pleased with my Ipaq310. It acquires a signal quickly, runs smoothly, and has a great screen in all conditions. The Tele Atlas maps aren’t as good as the NAVTEQ in my experience but that’s not the IPAQ’s fault. The POI is very good and useful.
The IPAQ is easy to use. I loaned the unit to my daughter who has used a Garmin NUVI and she was able to use it without problem without instructions of any kind.
The only problem I have had is the unit can get overloaded when in 3D mode and playing MP3s. It rebooted when I was programing a listening sequence and trying to navigate in 3D mode suggesting it was out of memory. The simple fix was to put it into 2D mode. The bluetooth mode with my Motorola is finicky and I think it’s the phone more than the HP. This GPS is a great unit and I’m very pleased. The low price just makes it better.

Keith - October 15th, 2008

After reading this and many other reviews, most of which ended up positively (sometimes after multiple forum comments), I bought the 310. I liked it because the played WMA and had the bluetooth handsfree in addition to very good GPS. A few thigns I wish someone would have mentioned:

– how awful the music player is. It can’t sort by artist, album, or anything. It just lists a huge bunch of songs, in alphabetical order. I wasn’t expecting much, but that’s pretty bad.

– The handsfree operation is completely useless. Finding a contact takes 20-30 secs, and once I’ve selected the number and pressed dial, it takes more than 60 secs to place the call. Slightly less when I switch to 2D nav. When receiving a call, I hear the pretty melody telling me that there’s an incoming call, but it doesn’t actually let me answer it. The screen just kinda stays there.

I’ve never really seen such a blatant “let’s build something so we can say we do it” piece of software. Someone may suggest that I need to read the manual and get to know the device for a month or two, but jeez, these are basic functions. If I actually tell it “group the song list by album” using the appropriate command, what else can it be? is there some magic in there I don’t know about? And if I need to know this magic, is that sensible for such a basic function?

The GPS is fine, but the rest is bloody awful. I wish someone would have mentioned it. It’s as if nothing but the GPS was tested in reviews.

Pierre - October 19th, 2008

@Pierre: If you want to register and log on to the forums, I’ll be more than happy to address some of your issues. And yes, read the manual. I have hundreds of videos and songs on a 5GB card, all classified by artist; I load the ones I want to listen to, off it goes. That functionality is all covered under Media Directories. I agree that the GUI is not the most user-friendly but once you learn how to it works, it’s pretty straight forward. I defer to others to comment on the phone application since I’m not using it – my cell is connected to the car BT-audio system.

Uncle Ben - October 29th, 2008

Hello, I was reading a lot here. I’m thinking about getting HP310 or Garmin 255w. I love Gadget toys, and this seems to give more customization. How is it compared to Garmin 255 device? I know Garmin is a great GPS. Just don’t know what to get, have the money. Very hard to decide PLEASE HEEEELP !!!

Max - October 30th, 2008

I work with topographic maps and aerial images and am wondering if I can import scanned and georeferenced maps or images into the iPAQ 318 and navigate using these images as a background?

Paul Illsley - January 17th, 2009

Hi, can anyone tell me how to download and install TCPMP or any other application on my ipaq 314. Windows mobile centre or actisync do not recognise my ipaq.thanking you in advance.

James O’Reilly - January 26th, 2009

I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone’s comments on the iPAQ 310. I am very interested in this product, it sounds like what I have been looking for in a GPS. I am currently using VZ Navigator on my LG Dare and have run into many issues with Navigation and recieving calls. I have been looking for a separate device for navigation but was looking for something with slightly more versatility than most GPS units offer. I have spent a lot of time researching the ipod touch and a module that allowed jailbroke GPS features… seemed like a lot of risk for the expensive equipment.
It appears that most of the original concerns have been adressed and resolved by HP. If anyone has any new or recent issues, please let me know, otherwise hopefully I will be another satisfied HP customer!

Josh - February 19th, 2009

The new issues is that HP appears to be abandoning the product. No new releases since it and no new software updates for it.

Tim - February 19th, 2009

Thanks Tim, I guess I will wait and see what HP does with the iPAQ 310 and research other options in the meantime.

Josh - February 19th, 2009

Just got the 310 for a very good price and havent used it yet.
i would like to know where i can get updated map sw and if i can load win ce office applications – if yes how.
Thaks for your help

thanks

janus

janus - February 20th, 2009

The only updated maps are what you will find in Contact Manager from last March (2008). In addition, there are no Office applications for WIN CE. Perhaps your are thinking of Windows Mobile?

patruns - February 28th, 2009

I was readying about the iPaq 310 and was planning on buying it… But I just found out that the device is being discontinued, (witch doesn’t bother me). I am worried about the web site that the device uses, to get its updates being shut down. I just read that it, ipaq.com will be shut down too. Is this true? and if this site is shut down, is there anyways to update the maps and POIs?. I would still like to buy the device, but only if I can continue to get updates.

Thanks!

Arik - March 11th, 2009

Arik,

Do not look for updates on this device.
HP has no updated the map since early 2008. There were no updates. They created an orphan product with inaccurate map, do not care about supporting it and now have discontinued the web site. The present HP is not what it used to be under the guidance of the late founders Bill Hewlett and David Packard. Now it is another immoral company that promotes and sells the product and damn the customer. After extensive communication with the HP President’s office relative to an accuracy issue they simply did not care. I used to be a devoted HP fan, now it is anyone but HP.
On the positive side, the display is beautiful, this is all the good I can say.

Mort - March 18th, 2009

@Arik – I would NOT count on any updates, I would not count on much in terms of support … if I were you, even though I think the 310 is an excellent PND, I would look at something else in the Garmin or TomTom lines.

Uncle Ben - March 11th, 2009

@Uncle Ben
I am not afraid on hacking or changing anything at all. As with my Magellan 4250, and 3200(?) I have found updated maps that I can put on SD cards and never need to worry about the space and not enough POIs again… If I could do that sort of thing with this one I want to buy it. And in the future if there was a way to compile Linux on it, I think that dual core will be a lot of fun to play with.
Truth is, I get an HP employee discount, and my price this week makes it temping…
I really do want everyone’s opinion on what hacks and other things I can do with it and if its even worth it…

Arik - March 11th, 2009

@Uncle Ben
I think I saw your name on another forum talking about this GPS. I was just skimming so I am really not sure… So if this question is not meant for you maybe someone else will be able to answer it. I was doing some Google searches… What can I do with MioPocket? Can I install it on the 310? How does it effect the map/gps software?

If I buy the 310, I need to do it soon, as I am not sure how long the lower price will be available to me. So I do not have a lot of time to do research; the more information that can be thrown at me over the next day or so, the better.
Thank you for your help!

Arik - March 11th, 2009

The company that makes the 310’s map, are now supporting the device. If you download their software and connect your ipaq 310 it will see it and give you options to buy new maps… so far I just can’t tell what the dates on the maps are. I am at work and don’t remember the name of the company/website but will past the link later. I tried posting the link last week, but it looks like it didn’t take.

Arik - March 18th, 2009

the site is,..
naviextras.com
They do mention it in the forum. I haven’t bought any maps yet, but it does recognize my device when its plugged in.

Arik - March 18th, 2009

how do i get 2009 Canada and US map update for my gps ipaq 310
Please help me
THx

Paul

paul - April 22nd, 2009

naviextras.com now identifies the iPAQ 300 series as opposed to iGO8. I upgraded the maps, 3d, POIs and safety camera’s the other day on my 310.

patruns - June 17th, 2009

So, if I go to naviextras.com and download their software then it will give me options for the ipaq310? I just checked the website and did not see the ipaq 310 listed as a supported device, so I didnt download anything yet. Thanks

steve

Steve - April 26th, 2009

Has anyone tried to load ArcPad GIS software on the 310. ArcPad says it requires Windows Mobile 5, but can one get away with CE?

Thanks

casey - April 30th, 2009

Kindly let me know booting path of HP Ipaq 310 device. So that I can install the application in SD card then can access the application through SD card.

Nithy - May 9th, 2009

Can you change the map so north is not always up. If you are driving south the arrow is pointing down Thanks Dave

Dave - June 2nd, 2009

Is the iPAQ 310 in a way a cell phone and a GPS in one?

Samantha - June 8th, 2009

no – its a bluetooth hands free (a fairly poor one at that – not enough volume) and a GPS – theres no phone component.

Robbo - June 8th, 2009

Yes mine as the bluetoot and it do work very good mabe u have a problem with your hp 310

Paul - June 8th, 2009

is there any canada map update for hp 310 gps

Paul - June 8th, 2009

I haven’t used my 310 for a couple of months and now find the battery is not taking a charge even though the on/off button is “yellow”. Has anyone tried the 3400 mah battery offered for this unit or should I stick with the oem HP battery?

Bob - July 1st, 2009

Check the sprecs on the 3400 mAH battery – all the ones I’ve seen are about twice the thickness of the regular 1700 mAH battery. I keep the 310 plugged in when not in use. Don’t know what the issue is with your battery but should you need to buy a new one, there is really no need to buy an original HP replacement – Global Batteries sell a replacement battery that works just as well for <$20. Have been using one for the past six months, alternating with the original HP battery, and I don’t see any difference – they perform the same. HTH. Cheers!

Uncle Ben - July 7th, 2009

Hi,
I was wondering if on this divice i could put any topografical features on this?
Thanks

Clay - July 25th, 2009

I have a big problem with mine, my cd is out dated because HP took down the web site. Please let me know my options. I am new at this. Thanks

Barbara - August 11th, 2009

Not sure what you mean that your CD is outdated. Mine never came with much info and I had to download Content Manager from the website. Since it is down and updates are not available, it really doesn’t make much difference. If you want a better tool, go to naviextras.com and download the free toolbox. With it you can make backups and move your old maps to your PC if you want to buy new ones.

patruns - September 1st, 2009

Hi
I my gps got stollen from my vehicle is there anyway that hp can trace it and call me or email me and tell me were it is
Thx

Paul - August 11th, 2009

GPS by itself is only a one-way technology. The device is a receiver, but does not transmit anything.

Tim - August 11th, 2009

Hi, just wanna ask what could possibily wrong as my 312 couldn’t detect any signal from satellite out of a sudden, nothing happen, did not drop it or anythinhg, just out of a sudden, pls advise, million thanks.

Sunny Peh - August 20th, 2009

Did you try a factory reset? Can’t really think of a reason, though sometimes it can take awhile to get a fix.

patruns - October 14th, 2009

Just learned about the discontinued support – I tried to update my maps for the first time since 08, and when it didn’t work I contacted HP. The online support person I spoke to had no idea that the product had been discontinued, and I gave up trying to get some actual help out of her after an hour.

http://www.naviextras.com don’t do Australian maps. This doesn’t make sense if they’re the company that was providing the maps in the first place. Is there any other site that I might be able to use? I don’t mind paying for maps (despite choosing the unit because they were free), I just don’t want a GPS that is years out of date. Thanks a lot, HP. Please let me know if anyone knows anything!

Nate - January 4th, 2010

That’s quite odd. They have safety camera and 3D files for Australia combined with New Zealand but only maps for New Zealand. Did you contact them about it?

patruns - February 17th, 2010

I did. All I got was that there is no plan at this stage to provide Australian map data. It’s really frustrating! I’m not willing to try to illegally get updated stuff by hacking the device, but it seems like there’s not another option other than to let it age to uselessness like the 2003 map I still have in my glovebox. Any news on any sort of update that might work will be well received!

Nate - February 18th, 2010

Really – this is a dead product. unfortunately, though it was spec’d really well and had potential, there is a lesson here – don’t buy gear from companies who arent focussed on the product. HP have a history of doing this kind of thing.

Theres plenty of vendors out there who are focussed on GPS – go for one of them and write this product off as a cute media player for one of the kids …

mister mayhem - February 19th, 2010

Now all I have to do is go out and get some kids! 😛 Thanks anyway…it’ll be kicking around in the glovebox for a while before I give up on it, so keep me posted on any updates!

Thanks again guys!

Nate - February 20th, 2010

MY IPAQ HP 310 JUST STOP WORKING ONE NIGHT OUT OF THE BLUE..IT WONT TURN ON WHEN I PUT IN THE CHARGER AND PRESS ON THE POWER BUTTON THE POWER BUTTON LIGHTS UP BUT THE SCREEN DOESN’T TURN ON..TRY ED LETTING IT CHARGE OVERNIGHT ANDTHAT DID NOTHING .. ANY SUGGESTIONS?

LUIS - February 23rd, 2010

Tim,

I can’t find the way to clear destination. I just would like to use only GPS, not navigation. What can I do? Any help?

Pong - March 6th, 2010

Go to edit route, then highlight the destination and touch the icon on the bottom with the “-” next to it.

patruns - March 18th, 2010

Hey, I just noticed. If you check every option box when searching for a review this is the only GPS that shows up.

patruns - March 18th, 2010

Yes… good observation. Mainly because my definitions for “pocketable” and “widescreen” typically rule each other out, but the dimensions of this device just barely slide by for both.

Tim - March 18th, 2010

Mine is a similar comment to LUIS – February 23rd, 2010
on a trip last week, I plugged the GPS into a USB charger port (surge protected), the 310 had the map lit up and was still operating while charging. During the night something happened and in the morning I got only the HP screen when on line power and nothing but a red charging light on USB hooked to 12V or to computer USB. Computer will not recognize. Pushing the reset button does nothing at all. How can one do a complete factory reset?? Is there another solution?

dennis - August 3rd, 2010

I do not believe that it will charge through the USB port on your computer. That is why HP included an a/c charger with it. It is possible that your battery is so depleted that it will simply not boot up. Mine wouldn’t hold a charge recently and I had to buy a new one. I don’t want to send you on a spending spree for a new battery if that is not the case though. I would try leaving it hooked up in the car for a couple of hours and see if you can get it to boot. Either that or try and boot it up while hooked up to the a/c charger. If neither of those work, it still may be the battery though.

patruns - August 10th, 2010

Saga continues. patruns, thanks for the reply. I borrowed a battery from a working 310 and inserted it into my unit. My battery is indeed dead (would not power up the working unit) and will not charge in car or by 110 connector. However, with the good battery in my 310, I still cannot boot (although I learned of the computer input mode obtained by pushing the volume key while pushing the reset key and letting go a few seconds later). I cannot find the HPRUU that might reload information into the 310. My computer does not recognize the unit at all, with the old or new battery, when I plug in the USB, so the content manager burps. I’d hate to toss the unit but I am not much of a hacker so I don’t know where to go from here. Any ideas welcome. Dennis

Thanks for the links. I had indeed found them already (and read through the 2 years worth of comments) and that is where I learned about the two button sequence to get to the HPRUU load screen. However, the right side reset button, the two button push and all other combinations including the power button do not boot my system. I really need to find the HPRUU reload all software file and a method of communicating with the device when it cannot be found via the USB connection. I again left it plugged into the wall for 2 days and it had the HP start screen up for the entire time – no further load or boot. I did NOT do this with a working battery, that is my next trial. Thanks, Dennis

Dennis - August 20th, 2010

Another belated response…..

The unit will not boot with a dead battery, even if plugged in. You have to have a battery that will at least accept a partial charge in order to boot up.

patruns - November 23rd, 2010

I have almost given up. I found a video which shows someone loading software from an SD card by inserting it during a hard boot. I was going to try downloading the HP software onto and SD and doing that. I did buy a new battery so that if I got it working it would continue. It will not boot with new battery, plugged into wall, nothing happens. I really need to find out how to reload the device, not just do a hard boot button push, since that does not actually boot the machine… please help

Dennis - November 24th, 2010

Same problem here for a week. But I lost the back cover.
There is a switch or something like that you can push beneath the cover, next to the battery.
If it is pushed, then the device turns on for me. If I release, it switches off.

It can be the last chance

jaccso - May 16th, 2011

Sadly, this is one of the many devices that HP have orphaned.

It did have potential, however I think the lesson here is that you are wise to buy solutions from companies who focus on innovation in that specific area, not just generic ‘lets have a slice of that market’ companies like HP has become in some areas. If you want a good computer/laptop/enterprise solution, HP is a good choice, but I’d never touch them for a navigator or phone etc etc.

You will save yourself a lot of trouble if you simple give up on this product and go buy a ‘name brand who specialises in GPS’ – garmin, etc. The ipaq might make an interesting toy while it lasts, but get a real nav device if you need it…

Robbo the Wonder Spaniel - January 1st, 2011

Well Robbo, I sort of took your advice before it came. Over the holidays I bought my wife a TomTom XL, since it was more to her taste and I bought myself a Garmin Nuvi 13XX series with a bit more in the background. They both work great and we took the TomTom with us to San Diego over the Xmas to NYear holiday and used it on the 5 lane wide freeways and it was really nice to have exits show before they came upon us. I really would like to get the old, non-updated FW for the HP 310, however, knowing it will still be the old stuff, just to get it working again. It is in fine shape, I have an extra battery, and all I need is to find a hard reset or a way to load the original FW back onto the system so it will boot. CAN ANYONE help me just reload original operating system and software??? is that too much to ask from HP or one of the folk who know the insides of this system?? Thanks!!

it talks about a list, but no list ever showed up. HERE is the secret. during the hard reset, press and hold the scroll button and press and release the soft reset button. The screen will sit for a while then display a RUU load with computer screen. CONTINUE to hold the scroll button. The screen will eventually turn to the list. Release the scroll, scroll down the list to #10 then press the scroll again. Wait for 5 minutes while the system sits and reboots, it then came back alive. Thanks to all who kept egging me on to keep trying.

Dennis - January 4th, 2011

i have problem to ON the set even charging 8 hrs.Charging stated red lighted but after all try to ON,there is no power..Model : HP iPAQ 310 Travel Companion GPS .Please advise me if anyone know what is the problem.
THANKS.

cheers
M.noor

M.Noor - September 1st, 2011

M.Noor – As I remember, the device will not power on if you need a new battery, even when plugged into the wall for power. I traded batteries with another owner and it worked perfectly. I then ordered a replacement battery off the net. Things were fine – but as in my previous posts, there was a very big problem with the reboot that took months to find a solution for (see above) Dennis

Dennis - September 6th, 2011

I really dig this GPS system. It’s one of the best I’ve ever used, although I’ll admit that I’ve been resorting to my Motorola Droid’s Google GPS which is a lot better for most situations.

In December, I’ll be switching to the iPhone 4S, which doesn’t have that great of a GPS, so I’ll probably start using my iPaq again soon.
-Yoshua